Digipak Photographs

I had the idea of taking photographs of smoke for one of my inside panels in my digipak, and so I sat in my room for about 4 hours taking photographs of smoke. I had to set it up really carefully and use black card and the flash in a specific ways to make sure it looked effective, and then I had to crop them so that I got the right parts to look good. I then had to use photoshop to change the levels and colour balance to experiment and make sure the smoke was very light and the background was very dark so that there was a contrast and the smoke stood out.

 

Here are the results.

 

 

 

And these are the original photographs. I had to crop most of the photograph out and only keep the bits at the top because when photographing the smoke I had to half cover the flash so that it only made the smoke lighter and not the background, and because I didn't have the right equipment it was difficult, so it only worked with the top halves of the photographs.

Digipak Analysis

Here I have analysed digipaks for albums that I think are quite similar music-wise as the band that I will be designing my digipak for (Shinedown). 



Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge - My Chemical Romance

The music on this album can be described as Emo Rock, and therefore quite dark and depressing, so the digipak has been made mainly black to connote the depressing nature of the album. The front cover is a painting of a couple with blood on their faces, and this is quite a dark picture as the blood suggests that someone has been murdered, and this links with the album title "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge" which could mean that someone was murdered for revenge, and they're celebrating that ("Three Cheers"). 

On the back cover there is a photograph of the band all wearing black clothes, which is the image of the band which can be seen in their music videos and other albums because they tend to do quite "Emo-ish" music, so the black clothes, eyeliner look tends to be associated with this. The band name is in a different font to the track names and album name, and this is a thing I have noticed with most albums, so I will take this into consideration when doing my digipak by using different fonts for the different kinds of text within the digipak. 

Hail To The King - Avenged Sevenfold

The music on this album can be described as heavy metal and hard rock, so again this is quite a dark genre and therefore the black digipak has been purposefully been done to match the music and the band's image. There are 6 panels on this digipak and I think I will use this format for mine because I think it will give me more room to put all my ideas on it and it means I can use a variety of photographs rather than limiting myself to just 2 or 3. The front cover actually only has half a picture and actually takes up two panels. I think this is a good idea if you have a symmetrical image but because I will be using photographs rather than a graphic image I don't think it will look as good, so I won't be using this idea. The skull with the wings is actually the band's logo, and I've noticed that nearly all digipaks within this genre have their logo located somewhere on the album, whether it's just the band name in a specific font that is used on all their albums and merchandise, or an image for a logo, so I will look into either designing my own logo, or using the logo that Alex made and we used for our video (I think I'll do that because then it links the video to the digipak). This digipak, like nearly all of the ones I have analysed, has a photograph of the band on the back dressed in dark clothes because that is how the band are always dressed as that gives them their 'dark' image. Different fonts have been used for different aspects of the digipak, so one font has been used for the album title on the front panel and the 'Hail' and 'King' on the inside panels, and then another has been used for the tracklisting on the back panel, and another for the band name on the spine of the digipak. I will use multiple fonts on my digipak because it is a common thing with digipaks to make it clear that all the texts and for different purposes, but I won't make them all too different, eg. one really curly and fancy, and then a straight boring font, because that would look very odd and unprofessional, so I will use fonts similar to the band logo that we already have. 

Fever - Bullet For My Valentine

Bullet For My Valentine are another heavy metal/hard rock band, like Shinedown, so I think they are a good band to analyse the digipaks of. The colour scheme uses dark colours, like black, grey and dark blue, with hints of white used for contrast to make it stand out, and I like this idea because it is effective and makes the audience notice the aspects that the designer wants them to notice. The back panel has a photograph of the band again, and the same things can be see: wearing black clothes to match the band image with the type of music, simple pose so can see the whole band, lead singer further forward than the other band member because they are the front man, and they all look very serious because the band are a serious band. On the inside panel there is also a photograph of the band, but this time they have all been photoshopped together, and I like the idea of having photographs on the other panels of my digipak, but I don't want to use a band shot because I think they only need to be on the digipak once, so instead I will think of other things I can photograph that relates to the band and their music on the album. The text is in white to stand out on the black backgrounds, and the band name is in the same font that is on all of their albums, so this helps people remember the band and so whenever they see the logo they will think of the band, which is a good technique because it means people are more likely to remember the band and keep spending money on their products. A different font has been used for the album name 'Fever' and the tracklisting, which makes it clear that the different texts are for different purposes so the audience don't get confuse about what all the text is for. 

All American Nightmare - Hinder

All American Nightmare by Hinder is a hard rock album and the digipak is very obvious that it is that kind of album because it follows the conventions of a typical rock album digipak. The woman in the picture on the front cover is covered in tattoos as tattoos are associated with rock music, and on the back cover there is a photograph of the band which is typical for rock albums. The colours that have been used are all quite dulled down, making them look more dirty, and this links again to the rock music because you wouldn't typically see bright pinks and blues on rock digipaks, and also dull red, white and blue have been used because the album title is "All American Nightmare" so the colour scheme links to the album title. The font that has been used for the album title is very similar to the one that has been used for the tracklisting, and then a different font has been used for the band name on the front cover, and this is because the band name has to look the same on each of their albums so that their audience recognises that it is by them in an attempt to make sure that people remember the band and buy their albums. 

Temper Temper - Bullet For My Valentine

This digipak is different to the others, but it is still an album with the same kind of music a Shinedown (rock/metal) and although it is different to the ones that I have analysed, lots of digipaks are actually like this one. The reason why it is so different is because it doesn't have a photograph of the band on it at all. This isn't something I will be doing because my digipak is for a new band's first album, whereas this band (Bullet For My Valentine) have a few albums out, and this is their fourth studio album, so they don't need a band photograph because people already know what the band look like, whereas when new bands come out they want people to see they so they can see what they're like and associate the music with the band members, making people want to spend more money on things associated with them. The colour scheme is red and white, which is quite different for a rock/metal album as they usually go for dark colours (black, grey, dark red etc.) because rock music and their fans tend to be quite dark. The band name is the same font as it always has been on their albums, making it memorable and recognisable for the fans, and it also makes it stand out from the other text on the digipak. The other fonts are fairy plain so that it can be easily read so people can read it and tell other people about it, because if they couldn't read it then they won't remember it and then they won't tell their friends, which is bad as the band wouldn't get much money.

Overall ideas I have taken for my own digipak: 

• Dark colour scheme works well with the rock/metal music. 
• Photograph of the band on the back panel for a breakout album.
• Use photographs related to the album title.
• Different font for the band name and use the same font for all merchandise and advertisements, and then different readable fonts for album title and track names etc.
• Create a band image as it's the breakout album so the band need their own look. Tends to be black clothes and serious/moody so people know what the band is about.

Final Draft!

Here is the final draft of our music video for Her Name is Alice by Shinedown.

As I was in charge of cinematography when we filmed our music video I had lots of responsibility in choosing the camera angles I wanted to film certain clips from. These are a few of my favourite ones because I think they look most effective. 

I like the low down close up of the feet and I also like how its filmed at an angle so that we can see the feet in the mirror before they appear at the side of the screen. 

These pictures are stills from my favourite clip in the whole video because it starts off with Alice in focus and the key on the tree blurry, and then I changed the focus manually so that the key goes clear and Alice goes blurry. I think this is effective because it makes the audience notice Alice first and then the key, making the shot more interesting. 

 

 

I also like the shots of the band members when they are holding the cards, and I like how I did some mid shots and then close ups and then changed which part of the people I filmed, and then Rosy edited them together to create a really interesting clip. 

Differences in Each Draft of Our Music Videos!

This post is dedicated to the differences with each of drafts we did for our music video. I will outline the main changes that we made because we felt they made our music video the best it can be.

First Draft
When filming our music video we had a very detailed storyboard to follow (courtesy of Rosy!) so we knew all the shots we wanted, but when we looked back at our footage, some of it hadn't worked out as we wanted it, especially the field shots as they were filmed at the end of the day and so the lighting wasn't great. We managed to find some other shots we had filmed to replace it, so instead of zooming in and out of Alice's eyes at the beginning and end, we zoom in on the pack of cards she is holding, and then she is just standing in the field on her own at the end, but we had to increase the brightness of these shots as there was very little lighting and she was barely visible. We also used slow motion shots of the band walking to their instruments at the beginning to give the band a bigger part in their video as it is supposed to be their music video, not Alice's. 
Throughout the video there are lots of shots of the band, and we added a flicker effect to make them stand out from the other shots, but when we got our feedback we found that our target audience didn't like this, as they thought it looked unprofessional, so we removed it and instead upped the contrast and brightness of these shots. 
Rosy was in charge of the editing when Alice is playing chess by herself, as she thought up this idea as she knew how to do it, so we were impressed when she showed us what she had done. I had filmed it, and so if I had filmed it wrong, ie. moved the tripod between shots, then it wouldn't have worked so effectively. 
We improvised a few shots on the day which I thought turned out well, for example, the shots of Alice stood in a field and rose petals falling on her in slow motion, and Alice laying down on the floor with rose petals surrounding her, and I like these because they show a softer side to the dark Alice we chose to portray. 

Second Draft
The second draft was completed on the same day as the first one after we had received feedback from our target audience, so we removed the flickering effect on the band and instead brightened them and upped the contrast. We also swapped a few clips around to make the video more dramatic and I think this was successful. 
We synced up some of the lyrics that weren't spot on, and finally we went through the whole video and checked for black clips where the clips weren't close enough, and when a simple cut wasn't very effective we used the crossfade transition to make it flow better, making it smoother to fit with the Alice in Wonderland theme.

Third Draft
At the end of the video we noticed that when we flickered between Alice on her own and then Alice with the Mad Hatter and Alice with the band, one shot of Alice showed her with lighter skin than the other, so we adjusted the colour balance to make her look the same in all the shots. 
We also added more crossfades as we felt it still didn't flow as well as it could, but we kept some fade to black shots when going from Wonderland to the real world, in an attempt to differentiate between the two worlds. 
There was a shot of the teaparty which we felt went on a bit too long, so we added a close up shot of some teacups to fit with the tea party setting but to have a variety of shots, making it more interesting to watch. 
We received some quite specific feedback concerning the band because some people felt that the band weren't dramatic enough, so we swapped some shots around and made the band look more dramatic and energetic, with slow motion clips of the singer singing and close ups of the band playing their instruments at the correct times. 

Final Draft
In our final draft we made very slight changes, so we just adjusted the saturation on a few images, and then when there is a shot of Alice throwing the powder paint and spinning we zoomed in on it a bit so that she was framed a little better. We are very happy with this draft.